The sun feels just a little warmer, the sky looks a little bluer - even the toast and eggs taste a little better.

For the Winnipeg Jets, 1-3 never looked or felt as good as it did on Tuesday morning.

"Oh my god, it's unbelievable," winger Chris Thorburn, seated in the Jets dressing room after practice, told the Sun. "There's definitely a better feeling in here now than there was before."

Through their first three games the Jets looked like ghosts of the also-ran Atlanta Thrashers.

A different team hit the ice here for Monday's spirited, 2-1 win over the Penguins, after which head coach Claude Noel revealed an early crisis intervention of sorts had taken place.

After returning from loss No. 3 in Phoenix, Noel called his team leaders into a meeting to find out what the @#$%&! was going on.

The message he got: chaos.

"We cleared up the chaos," Noel said after Monday's win.

Tuesday, some of the players in that meeting - they included Thorburn, Andrew Ladd, Johnny Oduya, Toby Enstrom, Mark Stuart and Ron Hainsey - added a little more detail.

And while they weren't willing to confirm that any heavy objects were thrown, their comments suggest the session went a long way toward clearing the air - maybe even nipping a potential crisis in the bud.

"I'm sure when he says chaos, it's that not everyone's on the same page," Thorburn said.

That doesn't just go for the players, either.

It sounds like the coach needed a few pointers, too.

"It was just finding what we needed to do, from both ends," Ladd said. "What we needed from him and what he needs from us.

"We had to make things a little more black and white, in terms of what we needed to do every night, and even in practice. Simplifying everything. That helped us get going last game."

The problem is simple: while the majority of these players know each other, the coaches don't know them. Not the way they need to.

Successful hockey isn't just about the forecheck, defensive zone coverage and pinching at the right time. It's about communication and trust.

And, frankly, those things were missing.

The players have to earn Noel's trust, sure. But he has to earn theirs, too.

"He's new to this group," Ladd said. "And we're new to him and we're still trying to figure each other out and know where he's coming from. Sometimes it just takes some time and you've got to talk it out."

If you don't, look out.

"It's something you need to have throughout a year," the captain continued. "They've gotta know what we're feeling and we've gotta know what they're feeling. 'Cause if you're not saying anything, then nothing's going to get better."

Oduya calls it the growth of a team.

The veteran defenceman also calls it the most important aspect of this particular team.

"How we want to be, how we want to act, what we want to do. It could be seen as a lot of cliches, maybe," Oduya said. "But you have to communicate and talk about things."

Last weekend's session, then, was invaluable. More productive than adding a 30-goal scorer.

"The coach wants to know where the locker-room's at, what guys are thinking and if changes need to be made," Thorburn said. "That's just a good sign of a coach that cares about his locker-room and his players. "Everything was taken into consideration. We passed it along to the players in the room and it seemed like it worked."

Put another way, this player-coach relationship, still in its infancy, grew some legs this week.

"As a group we have to grow," Thorburn said. "And we made our first step against Pittsburgh."